Transmission examinations and tomographic examinations by means of X-ray radiography, for example, X-ray CT examinations are often performed for examining changes in dermal tissues and internal organs in a living body. To avoid problems associated with X-ray exposure, methods for optical examination using laser beams or the like have been proposed as alternatives. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2003-144421 discloses a method in which a light emitter/receiver probe is placed against a skin surface of a living body so as enable application of a near-infrared light, and the spectrum of the received light is measured so as to determine a concentration of a component in the body skin tissue based on an analytical formula. Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 7-49306 discloses irradiating light on a living body using a multi-mode oscillating laser as the light source, synthesizing reflected light received from sites having different refractive indices within the living body, and performing spectroscopic analysis of the synthesized light for each oscillating mode so as to obtain light wave echo tomographic images.
As described above, in conventional techniques for optically determining a biological material property, differences in spectral distributions between the incident light and the reflected light are employed. Accordingly, it is necessary to use a large-scale system including many devices such as a light source having stable wavelength, a spectroscopic device for analyzing spectrums, and an analyzer for analyzing the spectral changes between the incident light and the reflected light.
For example, when performing an examination of a tumor on a body surface or a lump located within a living body, even when only a very limited region needs to be examined, a large-scale apparatus must be used, resulting in inconvenience and high costs.
An advantage of the present invention is to offer a solution to the above-noted problem of the conventional techniques by providing a simply-configured detection apparatus for optically determining a property of a biological material. The present invention advantageously provides a detection apparatus for optically determining a biological material property which measurement of a two-dimensional distribution of a material property using an apparatus of simple configuration.